Chong: I Don't Deserve The Death Penalty

May 30 2001

Richard "China" Chong, the only man in Hawaii's prisons to ever face the possibility of the death penalty, knows he will never get out of prison. But the career criminal, whose days are spent behind bars at the Oahu Community Correctional Center, insists that he's not as bad as prosecutors made him out to be. And he says he's certainly not deserving of capital punishment. "They got no reason to be scared of me, because I don't just go out and kill people," Chong said to KITV4 News reporter Daryl Huff. "My records show that. "I've ran away and I've did bad stuff, like break into people's houses, tie them up." But in 1997, while out on parole and dealing drugs, Chong shot William Noa Jr. over a $100 debt. Chong pleaded guilty to murder, which spared him the death penalty. But last month, he asked a judge to back out of the plea, saying that anti-depressant medication compelled him to plead guilty in the first place. The judge denied the request, a decision Chong's attorneys plan to appeal. Chong now says that Noa's death was a matter of self-defense. "The incident elevated out of fear, not out of malicious premeditation," Chong said. William Noa's sister, in particular, has been angered by Chong's attempt to reverse his fortune. "Chong can sit back and make demands for himself and have everyone ascend to his every whimper," Lezlie Noa said. "His actions show exactly what kind of inhuman, merciless coward he truly is." But Chong says that federal prosecutors wanted to make political points by prosecuting a death penalty case while Hawaii killers with more victims remain safe from execution in the state system, which has no death penalty. He says that while he feels he doesn't deserve to be put to death, there are those who do. "I did some bad things in my life, but some of the things that some of the people have done deserve nothing but -- put out of their misery, the way I look at it," Chong said. "But who am I to judge? Only God can do that."